A mechanically inept noob enters the world of junior karting…

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It wasn’t originally intended but I’ve quite enjoyed five weeks off from karting. Junior should have contested the third round of the Clay Pigeon IKR Winter Series: the kart was ready, his entry was in and then…Junior got a bit too big for his boots and I scratched his entry!?! As soon as uttered the words “And you *won’t* be racing this weekend”, I instantly regretted it. It was a Homer “Doh!” moment as I realised what I had said and cursed myself for not taking his PS4 away for a month! He was sitting in second place in the championship and a good result might have put him in with a chance of taking the title to the final round but there we go. With the title gone and the final round clashing with the Llandow MSA practice Saturday, our IKR season will come to a premature end and those Sava harder tyres that I so wanted to try will either be sold having only been used in one heat over the two rounds that we contested (20 laps old, yours for £70!) or saved for next winter. Before you get the wrong idea, I should add that I cannot remember the last time I felt the need to punish Junior: he is a *very* good lad, certainly the most conscientious I’ve ever met but parents must set their own tolerance levels and I guess mine are pretty low! I still reckon I’m a great dad 😉 Moving on…

Considering we’ve not seen any track action, 2016 is already off to a very expensive start: Both our motors have had rebuilds; the race engine rebuild was scheduled, the practice motor rebuild wasn’t. We’ll probably need a new set of slicks to start the season too :/

The kart finally got some attention at the weekend. With the chassis now turning 7 years old :/ it isn’t looking its best (never spray a kart and not give a coat of lacquer!). We’ll start the season on it and see what we can do with a view to getting something newer. It’s all set for a half-term outing when we’ll run in the engines and set ourselves up for Round #1 at Llandow.

I’d been having some second thoughts about entering the Festival, particularly since seizing the engine #2 at Llandow Saturday practice. It wasn’t just a financial challenge: we left for Birmingham airport the day after Llandow and flew off for a two-week holiday the following day. Upon my return there would be one day to get everything cleaned (from Llandow) and prepared for the Festival. No time to run the engine in and we really did not want to waste Friday practice at the Festival doing that instead of learning the track. There were numerous other little concerns; the distance, camping, the ability of our nosecone to pass scrutineering (I had left a new nosecone with KartDavid, who were printing and fitting the decals ready for me to collect on my one and only prep day) but we’d signed up already and, although my prep time was sub-optimal, I was still quite excited about the prospects for the weekend.

Initially, I hadn’t been able to get the Friday off of work. I had arranged for Tim Wilson, of TWMotorsport, to take the kart up to Kimbolton. We had done a coaching day with Tim back in February (in the dark times when I was starting to doubt Junior), Junior had gotten a lot out of the day and I had become good friends with Tim. Junior would get a lift with a friend to Kimbolton and would spend the day being run by Tim. With my being away, Tim had arranged to have the engine repaired and run-in on the dyno at Dave Klaassen’s and we’d spend the weekend running in his awning. “You ran in a team???” I hear you shout! I’m afraid so 😮 As strong a supporter as I am of the dad/lad ethos I had decided that, as this was already going to be an expensive weekend, I was going to ensure that we had support. The primary reason was for coaching Junior on an unfamiliar track but I wanted that safety blanket just in case I found myself drowning in a sea of woe and needed someone there to bail me out!

I had slept like a baby for the first ten days of our holiday but had started waking up at stupid-o’clock towards the end, my mind switched on working through everything that needed doing on the kart. We got home at around 8pm on the Tuesday and I set about ticking things off of my list of things to do. In the end I did manage to get the Friday off. Things were starting to come together but the schedule was insanely tight. Having returned to work on the Wednesday, I had only the evening to get everything sorted: kart cleaned from Llandow/set up for Kimbolton, trailer packed, everything that would go in the car had to be ready including racewear, tents, bedding clothes, toiletries, food. A Renault Clio isn’t the exactly an optimal solution for a stay-away race weekend and we’d never travelled as heavily loaded before. I got home from work at 4pm on Thursday and we had set off for Kimbolton by 5pm.

One stop and three hours later, we were at the track. We quite a lot to do before it got dark: unload the kart and all the bits and pieces I’d be keeping with me in the team awning, then we needed to get the tents up but I was sat down with a beer by 10pm whilst Junior was on track somewhere doing whatever junior drivers do when they get together on a dark race track!?! Football in this case, I think…

Kart track camping was a new experience for us. In fact we’d only ever camped once before way back when the kids were small and I wasn’t really sure how Junior or I would get on. Badly would be the answer if the Thursday was anything to go by: we were camped next to a tent from which emitted the loudest snoring I had ever heard! It quickly woke Junior up and that woke me up. Once awake, it was impossible to ignore. Junior was getting really annoyed; it certainly wasn’t the perfect preparation for a busy day at the track. One good thing about being awake early is that you can get up and start working on the kart. We were ready in good time. I went for a setup similar to that which Junior would be familiar with from Llandow although dropped down to a smaller rear sprocket to account for the straights. Kimbolton is a very different track to Llandow and the plan was to let Junior just get out there, enjoy it and see how his times fared through the day. Junior first walked the track with former TKM Extreme British champion Will van Es, who had been employed by TWM to do some coaching. I know that Junior found this really useful. Better still, being the only junior entrant in the awning, we benefitted from 1:1 coaching when we were on track 🙂

With seven sessions there was no shortage of track time. Junior started with a 45.6s PB but instantly knocked 1.4s off of that and I was really pleased with his progress as he whittled that down to 43.8s on the newly rebuilt practice engine and on tyres that, having been used for the 2-day Welsh Championships and the subsequent club race day, were well past their best. Things became a little confusing in the day’s final session: we bolted the race engine on and went two tenths slower :S Although the track certainly wasn’t getting quicker our peers didn’t appear to suffer. Our practice engine had dyno’ed pretty well and the builder had made a couple of tweaks to optimise the settings to his preferences but our race engine is strong and its performance concerned me a little.

Not normally stopping overnight at the track, it was nice to sit down and have a beer with friends. As my friends were scattered around the track this meant several beers and some dashing around. The atmosphere in the TWM awning was pretty unique too: music, barbeque, beer and plenty of people – it was a social event like nothing you’d see elsewhere in the paddock!

I hadn’t done anything about the sleeping arrangements but I was fast asleep well before the snoring started. That is until I awoke to hear Junior getting stressed about it… This time he was adamant that he wanted to sleep in the car. I handed him the key and that brought about ten minutes of him messing about in the car which I then I heard him lock!?! I didn’t want to get up (why does the unzipping of a tent wake everybody up?) and could only keep my fingers crossed that he wouldn’t set off the internal motion sensor. He did. After ten more minutes he decided that he need the toilet. I told him to go behind the car but without appreciating quite how much noisier things sound when you are in a tent! If you’ve seen the scene in Police Squad where Frank Drebin visits the men’s room with his microphone still attached, well it sounded something like that. It was hard not to see the funny side at this point and I started laughing out loud! We all got back to sleep: Junior, me and our snoring neighbour. I got up at 6am to find Junior curled up on the back seat of the Clio; everything else that had been there was now strewn across the car. He clearly did not realise the front seats actually recline quite far!

Race day started with a 3-lap warm-up. I left the race engine on to see how it fared but we were a little adrift of where I felt we should be so the practice engine went back on for qualifying. We would be scrubbing in the race tyres over the first lap and then looking for a tow around the track, the problem was that the quick drivers dropped us too quickly and Junior got mixed up with another pack of drivers that weren’t necessarily quicker than him. After our qualifying experience at the Welsh Championships I was hoping he’d have known better than to let himself get bogged down in traffic. Clearly not. We qualified 12th of 22 in the first qualifying group but weren’t helped by the track quickening a fair bit by the time the second group went out and we found ourselves bumped down to 28th overall.

Heat #1 was very good. Despite being drawn on the outside and getting stuck behind somebody who bogged down badly, allowing every odd-numbered starter bar the back marker to pass us, Junior worked his way back up through the field. He defended a bit when under pressure from one of his good friends but I couldn’t begrudge him that 😉 With a couple of the front runners taking each other out, we finished 10th with a PB of 43.2s – only 0.4s off the pace 🙂 We got summoned to the clerk’s office as we’d been the subject of a complaint about contact before the start but we’d suffered similarly and were just being pushed along by other drivers frustrated at how our side of the grid had been allowed to fall so far back compared to the odd-numbered starters. There wasn’t much Junior could have done about other than brake on the run-up to the start line!

Heat #2 wasn’t quite so good: Junior made a good start, going around the outside of Stow to make up several places but then tried to defend his position for *far* too many laps than he should have and succeeded only in holding himself up and being passed by four of those behind him. Still, 13th was another respectable finish and we were on course to make the Elite Final! 😀

I couldn’t afford for Junior to have another poor night’s sleep so we unpegged the tents and moved that evening. We got some strange looks as we dragged the tents down the field but people saw the funny side when I explained the predicament! We also had to venture off in search of fuel. I kind of assumed that the village of Kimbolton would have some facilities – a chip shop and a petrol station perhaps but this didn’t seem to be the case. Passing numerous very nice looking gastropubs enroute made me hungry and I decided that I needed a cooked meal. There was a steak out there somewhere with my name on it 😉 Junior wasn’t best pleased by this since he just wanted to get back and play football but I wouldn’t be deterred. As we passed places, Junior would check out the reviews on TripAdvisor and then pull up the menus on the pub’s website (mostly to ensure they sold something plain enough for Junior). We called into one place who only had tables left in the garden; that was fine by me but, when we tried to order, we were told that there was a 45 minute wait time (before your request was even seen by the chef) because they were full. Umm… goodbye! Unfortunately, Saturday evening at a gastropub seems to be a popular thing in Cambridgeshire and the next two pubs we tried were both full. This was the steak that got away but, for the record, The George at Spaldwick would have been my preferred venue. Even with a banana shake, my McDonalds seemed even more bland that evening…

Sleeping outside on a still summer’s evening was suprisingly relaxing. That was until a domestic kicked off metres away from our tent :/ I won’t waste too much of my web space on this, suffice to say it was pretty disgraceful considering there were kids around. It went on long enough but, eventually, we got some sleep. Junior slept right up until the point that I tripped over his guide rope after my morning shower!

Sunday started fairly badly. Junior was targetting another 10th place finish in his final heat to secure a relatively strong pre-final spot. I urged caution – we just needed to complete the race in our starting position to pretty much guarantee we made the Elite Final. Of course, you can guess what happened next: somebody went diving up the inside, skittled out a few karts a Junior had nowhere to go as he entered the first corner. He got going again but was well adrift and only made a couple of places as others crashed out, finishing 17th of 22. Our nosecone had suffered extensive damage and had been dragging along the floor for the entire race. I absolutely did not want to put the new nosecone on for the pre-final and final; that just seemed like asking for trouble. I fixed it up with duct tape (not forgetting some colour matching insulation tape to retain the Caterham stripes!) and applied our fourth Maxxis nosecone sticker of the weekend. It was just as well that the office had a good supply of these!

Considering that we didn’t actually crash, the pre-final was even more of disappointment. We had qualified in 26th of 34, had a poor start and found ourselves shuffled back early on – partly through some poor racecraft (making a pass but leaving the door open at the next corner for the immediate re-pass) and partly getting roughed up a bit. Things got quite defensive considering we were running at the very back and Junior only beat two finishers home. We both thought that he had been passed under yellows on the final lap but nothing had been reported. He was beating himself up when I got to him in parc ferme. “We might as well not bother”, “What’s the point?”, “I was rubbish” were a few of the many things he was spouting. My more pressing concern was our pace; we were almost a second off :/

We had a chat back at the awning. I knew that Junior had not had enough time or experience of racing people (we’d found front-running pace overnight at Llandow in April and were quickly having to learn racecraft that most learn as they rise through the pack) and that this would be exposed in a grid with the top TKM drivers in the country. Even at the back things were still competitive (they don’t call it the Elite Final for nothing) but this was an opportunity: if you cannot develop your racecraft in the middle of a grid of 34 drivers, where can you? Junior would start the final on row 13 of 17, again on the outside row (we didn’t start on the inside row the whole weekend!) but this may be the last time he got to drove Kimbolton – he had to go out and just have fun driving the track and competing with those around us that we on a similar pace. Besides that, if you had offered us 26th place on the Elite Final grid on Thursday we’d had bitten your hand off!

As far as the kart was concerned, I was ready to gamble on some major changes since the day was quickly going downhill. We had gone down a tooth for the pre-final so went back up again, on went the race engine – I didn’t really believe it could be slower and we replaced the carb since the one we were racing on had been leaking pressure. So onto the final! It was nice that all six of the Llandow drivers had qualified for the Elite Final; two at the sharp end, one in the middle and three of us at the back. We only lost the one place at the start (I think that qualifies as a good start on the outside) and Junior found himself in a six-kart battle for 19th place. It was really good to see him duking it out with those around him. He gained and lost the odd place in the pack, making up places mostly through attrition as those ahead fell by the wayside but I enjoyed watching him and it looked like he was having fun too. He finished 15th – a very pleasing, if flattering, result. He had a big smile on his face and was busy shaking hands with the hitherto unknown drivers he had been racing with. It was a really good way to end the day.

I would like to have watched more of the finals but there was an awful lot of packing up to do and, of course, I didn’t see Junior once during this time. He did finally re-appear to help pack up the tents and we left as soon as we were ready. It was at this point that I realised I hadn’t eaten a single thing since my bowl of Special K and an apple for breakfast so I had Junior feed me for the first part of journey home. Only now was there a time to reflect upon the weekend: it had been a great experience. There is something special about a TKM-only event, three days away with your karting mates and watching Junior develop even if nowhere near the sharp end of the grid. Hunts Kart Racing Club had done a great job of hosting the event and it was very hard not to be impressed by the efficiency, the work (and numbers) of volunteers and a fantastic track.This was the kind of club that others should aspire to me more like. Our first experience in a team awning was a good one. Although I’d not paid for a mechanic, support was never far away and it was nice to be able to call on assistance when needed to ensure that everything was ready before the next race – having my race tyres fitted, getting the front end lasered or the brakes bled – the little things that just saved me time and, in the case of tyre fitting, worry!!! The help that Junior received was massive: the track walk, a review of his lines etc after each session/race, pointers for the next race, that bit of moral support when it was needed. I was never really party to much of this but Junior rated it 9/10 so I guess he was happy! I’d love to return more regularly but it’s just that bit too far and I think it’s fair to say that we are fair weather campers. If we are in the class/sport next year, we’ll definitely be back. Racing at Llandow won’t quite seem the same again…

After our chain snapping woes at our practice day, I hastily got the engine head off to see what was going on. Data analysis showed that the engine had hit 21,306rpm!!! 🙁

The top piston ring was stuck firmly in place and all evidence suggested that the piston had hit the head. RIP my three-day old piston.The crank was also out of alignment. If there was any positive to be taken from this, the head at least looked ok. I had it collected by a friendly engine builder for a new piston and repair.

Things got worse when I was informed that my lovely new crank was slightly twisted although Tal-Ko assured me that this could be straightened and I didn’t pass up on the opportunity to save £166!

Having run a single Panther chain for the biggest part of 2014, I was fed up with my ‘cheaper’ chains snapping so ordered another trusty Panther and Talon sprocket – I am pretty keen to avoid any future chain woes and will be running my engine stop bolt a lot closer to the engine in future.

With the practice engine due a rebuild and my previously stated fear of posting engines via couriers, I recently drove up North to spend the day with my engine builder. It was a bit of a hike but being able to get the engine back same day coupled with the chance to see what goes on and learn more about something I am still largely ignorant made this an easy decision.

It proved to be a really insightful day: Stripping the engine down, measuring the wear on some of the key parts, putting names to parts and seeing where they fit in (I know I could study the Tal-Ko parts diagram but it is not quite the same). Crushingly, my con rod did need replacing 🙁 How an 8-inch piece of machined metal can cost £166 is beyond me. It would have been fair enough had this been a BMW part – perhaps I just don’t appreciate fine engineering? 😉

It was good to learn the measurements of the squish, the head volume, inlet and exhaust ports along with my ignition timing (something else I had hitherto paid no attention to). I cannot guarantee I’ll be able to explain the exact functions of all of those just yet but I am making progress! The builder was pleased with the engine and saw no reason why it would be 0.3s slower around Llandow than our race engine but we’ll run it in and assess if anything has changed. We took the measurements for the race engine too so that we could tweak things if need be.

It was getting pretty late by the time we got to carb rebuilds. It was the first time I had watched a full rebuild – there wasn’t that much to it so I will hopefully do my own in the not-too-distant future! My recent eBay-purchased 820 carb that had seen only one session’s use at Llandow since being cleaned and kitted proved to be fit for nothing more than donor parts since the throttle shaft spring no longer remains held by the body of the carb (yes, we did try another spring) 🙁

It’s been three weeks or so since I took Junior’s kart out and in that time I have done… absolutely nothing to do with karting! Sure; Junior’s kart needed re-assembling after I replaced large chunks of it a) to fit me and b) in case I broke stuff but I hadn’t really felt the inclination to put it back together again. The break has been good but it was time to address my lack of attention as we race again next weekend and I won’t have any free time next week. So the kart looks shiny and new again. Or as shiny and new as it can look after the contact we had last month!

Although I have spent no time on it, I could soon be spending a fair amount of money! Both the race and practice engines are coming up for rebuild 🙁 and with a few non-karting expenses to balance, I’m under a bit of pressure budget-wise. I have been considering for some time what to do with our practice engine: it’s on a 51.4mm piston and the options were obviously to just continue with it, rebuild it in a couple of hours’ time and, if/when the time came for a new bore, make the Extreme/new barrel/sell it decision at that point or to sell it now and use the funds from the sell, together with the saved rebuild money to buy another engine. I’ve decided to do the latter and have sourced a CNC-barrelled engine with 90 mins running time that I should pick up next week. That still leaves the race engine also coming up for rebuild and I might just have to retire that one for a month or two. The imminent costs have also spurred me into action to sell some of the stuff that came with the retirement package that I have no need for, so if you are after some tidy OTK M3 side pods/bars or some MXP rims, there are some an auction site near you 😉